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When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; When the government fears the people, there is liberty.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Entries Tagged as 'Unemployment'

Economic recovery leaving some behind this Christmas

December 13th, 2010 · Economy, Unemployment

By Ylan Q. Mui Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 12, 2010; 12:12 AM

A new division is emerging in America between those who have moved on from the recession and those still caught in its grip.

This holiday season, those two worlds have been thrown into stark relief: At Tiffany’s, executives report that sales of their most expensive merchandise have grown by double digits. At Wal-Mart, executives point to shoppers flooding the stores at midnight every two weeks to buy baby formula the minute their unemployment checks hit their accounts. Neiman Marcus brought back $1.5 million fantasy gifts in its annual Christmas Wish Book. Family Dollar is making more room on its shelves for staples like groceries, the one category its customers reliably shop.

“When you start to line up all the pieces, you see a story that starts to emerge,” said James Russo, vice president of global consumer insights for The Nielsen Co. “You kind of see this polarized Christmas.”

Though economists declared the recession officially over last summer, the pace of recovery has been uneven across income levels. The rebound in the stock market and record low mortgage interest rates have mostly benefited affluent households, buoying their confidence in the economy along with their ability – and their desire – to spend. Meanwhile, progress largely has bypassed poorer families who remain hamstrung by anemic wage growth and a higher unemployment rate.

This tale of two Christmases is being played out from the shopping mall to the kitchen table. At Towson Town Center outside Baltimore, sales are exceeding expectations in the mall’s new wing of luxury retailers such as Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Tiffany’s, executives said. But Miriam Pap of Baltimore City has never stepped inside those stores, even though she often works a few feet away, selling Auntie Anne’s pretzels at a small cart at the entrance to the hallway.

“We don’t have the money,” Pap said on a recent afternoon, as she served up samples of cinnamon raisin to shoppers juggling Nordstrom bags and baby strollers.

Pap, 24, said she does plan to spend more this holiday season – only for bills, not on gifts for her daughter in Guatemala and definitely not on shopping for herself. Food, gas, even drycleaning seems to be more expensive, she said. This Christmas, she plans to work and feels lucky to do so.

“Here is job, job, job,” she said.

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Uneployment Rate up .2% despite Government’s claim of 39,000 add jobs.

December 6th, 2010 · Economy, Unemployment

U.S. employers added 39,000 jobs in November, the Labor Department said, a sign that the economy is accelerating, but at a pace lower than what analysts expected. Analysts had predicted employers would add between 75,000 and 200,000 jobs, according to a Bloomberg survey.

The unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, compared with 9.6 percent in October.

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Democrats’ enthusiasm gap on full display as Obama refers to economy as driving a car.

November 1st, 2010 · Accountability, Democrats, Dissention, Economy, Obama Exposed, Selling Out the US, Unemployment

  • 8,000 of 60,000 still sleeping behind the wheel of Obama’s “Car” as he tries to convince them that the other 52,000 people are Trick-or-Treating.  Now that is SCARY!!

By Nia-Malika Henderson Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 1, 2010; 1:46 AM

CLEVELAND -  President Obama‘s last midterm campaign appearance Sunday summed up the plight of his party – he spoke in a half-full arena, in a deep blue part of a GOP trending swing state, where a governor is locked in a tight contest, and a Democratic Senate candidate has been given up for dead.

Two years ago, Obama drew a crowd of 60,000 in this same city two days before Election Day. On Sunday, about 8,000 showed up to see the president and Vice President Biden – maybe church service and trick-or-treating kept people from coming out, aides and supporters said.

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Most Americans worry about ability to pay mortgage or rent, poll finds

October 29th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Housing Industry, Reform, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Unemployment

By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Jon Cohen Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 28, 2010; 12:52 AM

A majority of Americans now say they are worried about making their mortgage or rent payments, underscoring the extent of economic anxiety in the country heading into midterm elections.

A new Washington Post poll shows that concerns about housing payments have spiked since 2008 despite some improvements in the overall economy. In all, 53 percent said they are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about having the money to make their monthly payment. Worries are the most intense among those with lower incomes and among African Americans.

The poll results highlight the political challenge facing the Obama administration: Despite committing hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out troubled financial firms, create jobs and keep distressed borrowers in their homes, it has not been able to make many people feel better about their personal situations or even relieve fears about the cost of a need as basic as shelter.

The recent foreclosure mess provides another example of this gap between the policy decisions in Washington and the sentiment of ordinary Americans. The poll reveals that just over half of the country thinks the administration should impose a national moratorium on foreclosures to sort out whether banks are improperly seizing the homes of struggling borrowers. But the White House rejected that idea, saying it would gravely wound the fragile housing market.

White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said the administration has deployed every possible resource at its disposal to “pull our economy back from the brink.”

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Employers looking at health insurance options

October 25th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government Control, Healthcare, Immigration, Money Lost, National Security, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Small Business, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason, Treasury, Unemployment

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR – The Associated Press
Monday, October 25, 2010; 4:12 AM

WASHINGTON — The new health care law wasn’t supposed to undercut employer plans that have provided most people in the U.S. with coverage for generations.

But last week a leading manufacturer told workers their costs will jump partly because of the law. Also, a Democratic governor laid out a scheme for employers to get out of health care by shifting workers into taxpayer-subsidized insurance markets that open in 2014.

While it’s too early to proclaim the demise of job-based coverage, corporate number crunchers are looking at options that could lead to major changes. Gov. Phil Bredesen, D-Tenn., said the economics of dropping coverage are “about to become very attractive to many employers, both public and private.”

That’s just not going to happen, White House officials say.

“The absolute certainty about the Affordable Care Act is that for many, many employers who cover millions of people, it increases the incentives for them to offer coverage,” said Jason Furman, an economic adviser to President Barack Obama.

Yet at least one major employer has shifted a greater share of plan costs to workers, and others are weighing the pros and cons of eventually forcing employees to strike out on their own.

“I don’t think you are going to hear anybody publicly say ‘We’ve made a decision to drop insurance,’ ” said Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. “What we are hearing in our meetings is, ‘We don’t want to be the first one to drop benefits, but we would be the fast second.’ We are hearing that a lot.” Deloitte is a major accounting and consulting firm.

“My conclusion on all of this is that it is a huge roll of the dice,” said James Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, which represents big company benefits administrators. “It could work out well and build on the employer-based system, or it could begin to dismantle the employer-based system.”

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The Overseas Profits Elephant in the Room: There’s a trillion dollars waiting to be repatriated if tax policy is right.

October 20th, 2010 · Economy, Government Control, Greed, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Treasury, Unemployment

By John Chambers and Safra Catz

During last year’s “Jobs Summit,” President Obama said he was open to any good idea to get the economy moving again. Today he should be especially so, since Washington’s many monetary and fiscal policy decisions have not been able to spur the robust growth or job expansion that we all would like. And yet there is a simple idea—the trillion-dollar elephant in the room—that has apparently been dismissed for no good reason.

One trillion dollars is roughly the amount of earnings that American companies have in their foreign operations—and that they could repatriate to the United States. That money, in turn, could be invested in U.S. jobs, capital assets, research and development, and more.

But for U.S companies such repatriation of earnings carries a significant penalty: a federal tax of up to 35%. This means that U.S. companies can, without significant consequence, use their foreign earnings to invest in any country in the world—except here.

The U.S. government’s treatment of repatriated foreign earnings stands in marked contrast to the tax practices of almost every major developed economy, including Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Australia and Canada, to name a few. Companies headquartered in any of these countries can repatriate foreign earnings to their home countries at a tax rate of 0%-2%. That’s because those countries realize that choking off foreign capital from their economies is decidedly against their national interests.

Many commentators have pointed to the large cash balances sitting on U.S. corporate books as evidence that the economy is still stalled because companies aren’t spending. That analysis misses the point. Large cash balances remain on U.S. corporate books because U.S. companies can’t spend their foreign-held cash in the U.S. without incurring a prohibitive tax liability.

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Obama continues attack on Chamber of Commerce

October 11th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within, Terrorist Threat, Treason, Unemployment

By Dan Eggen and Scott Wilson Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 11, 2010; 1:08 AM

The White House intensified its attacks Sunday on the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its alleged ties to foreign donors, part of an escalating Democratic effort to link Republican allies with corporate and overseas interests ahead of the November midterm elections.

The chamber adamantly denies that foreign funds are used in its U.S. election efforts, accusing Democrats of orchestrating a speculative smear campaign during a desperate political year.

President Obama, speaking at a rally in Philadelphia, said “the American people deserve to know who is trying to sway their elections” and raised the possibility that foreigners could be funding his opponents.

“You don’t know,” Obama said at the rally for Senate candidate Joe Sestak and other Democrats. “It could be the oil industry. It could even be foreign-owned corporations. You don’t know because they don’t have to disclose.”

The remarks are part of a volley of recent attacks by Obama and other Democrats on alleged foreign influence within the Republican caucus, whether through support for outsourcing jobs by major U.S. corporations or through overseas money making its way into the coffers of GOP-leaning interest groups.

The comments also come as Democrats attempt to cope with an onslaught of independent political advertising aimed at bolstering Republicans, much of it fueled by donations that do not have to be revealed to the public. The spending has added to a political environment in which Democrats are in danger of losing control of both the House and Senate.

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Government had been warned for months about troubles in mortgage servicer industry

October 11th, 2010 · Banking Industry, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government, Government Control, Housing Industry, Obama's Scheme, Real Estate, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Unemployment

By Zachary A. Goldfarb Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 10, 2010; 12:45 AM

Consumer advocates and lawyers warned federal officials in recent years that the U.S. foreclosure system was designed to seize people’s homes as fast as possible, often without regard to the rights of homeowners.

In recent days, amid reports that major lenders have used improper procedures and fraudulent paperwork to seize properties, some Obama administration officials have acknowledged they had been aware of flaws in how the mortgage industry pursues foreclosures.

But the officials said they could take only limited action to address the danger. In part, this was because they wanted lenders’ help carrying out federal programs to modify mortgages that had fallen into default or were poised to do so.

New concerns about improper practices – such as those involving faked documents or “robo-signers” who signed tens of thousands of documents without reviewing them – have prompted the mortgage servicing arms of the country’s largest banks to freeze millions of foreclosures. As momentum builds for a national moratorium, the administration has begun assessing the potential impact, examining the threat it could pose for the ailing housing market and the wider financial system.

There is no evidence so far that the specific abuses made public in the past few weeks were known to government officials. Nor is it clear whether they were aware that the process of the selling and reselling of mortgages among financial firms – which became extremely common and highly profitable during the housing boom – was raising legal questions about who actually owned the loans and had the right to foreclose if they went bad.

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Momentum builds for nationwide freeze on foreclosures despite the grave impact on the nation’s housing market and economic recovery.

October 11th, 2010 · Banking Industry, Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Government Control, Greed, Housing Industry, Obama's Scheme, Real Estate, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason, Treasury, Unemployment

By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Steven Mufson and Jia Lynn Yang Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 9, 2010; 10:23 AM

Senior Obama administration officials said Friday that a nationwide moratorium on foreclosure sales may be inevitable, despite their grave reservations about the impact a broad freeze would have on the nation’s housing market and economic recovery.

Their remarks were made as pressure for a nationwide moratorium mounted Friday when Bank of America, the nation’s largest bank, halted foreclosure sales in all 50 states. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who is locked in a tight reelection campaign, called on other major lenders to follow suit.

The White House has so far resisted joining the election-season calls for action but convened two interagency meetings this week to discuss reports that banks filed fraudulent documents to evict delinquent borrowers and to deal with questions about whether banks are seizing properties without having clear ownership of the mortgages.

One meeting was made up mostly of groups that regulate the housing industry, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Treasury Department and the White House. The other, which involved the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. attorneys from across the country, was focused on the question of whether financial fraud was committed.

With foreclosed properties comprising one in every four homes sold in the United States, the spreading moratorium could disrupt real estate deals in progress, slow down the process of clearing the backlog of troubled home loans and prolong the economic recovery, analysts said.

A freeze would also strike at the financial sector, just two years after it suffered one of the worst crises in its history. One government official who has been in discussions with several big financial firms said the banks are bracing themselves for a wave of lawsuits from homeowners who are fighting to keep their homes and from investors who had bought mortgage loans on Wall Street. On Friday, while the Dow Jones industrial average crossed 11,000, most major bank stocks fell.

Bank of America is the first bank to put a moratorium on foreclosures in all states, extending its suspension to states such as California and Nevada, which have been hit hardest by the housing bust. Previously, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and others had announced that they were stopping foreclosures only in the 23 states where a court order is needed for an eviction.

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Unemployment remains 9.6%

October 8th, 2010 · Economy, Unemployment

By Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 8, 2010; 1:19 PM

The nation’s gloomy job situation remained essentially static in September, as a modest increase in private employment was offset by the loss of government jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The politically sensitive unemployment rate remained at 9.6 percent, and the number of unemployed people – 14.8 million – remained essentially unchanged from the previous month.

Overall, employers shed 95,000 jobs in September. Private employers added 64,000 jobs, but the loss of temporary Census jobs and increasing cuts by state and local governments grappling with the aftershocks of the recession caused the loss of 159,000 government posts.

The number of people involuntarily working part time increased by 612,000 in September to 9.5 million, the government reported.

Men continued to bear the brunt of the unemployment problem, with an overall unemployment rate of 9.8 percent compared with 8 percent rate for women. The unemployment rate for blacks was 16.1 percent; for Hispanics the rate was 12.4 percent; for whites it was 8.7 percent; and for Asians it was 6.4 percent. All of those rates were little changed from August.

The report is the last before crucial midterm elections in November, in which the troubled job market has emerged as a paramount issue.

The White House tried to place the mixed jobs report in a broader context.

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